The shameful bloody silence at the heart of this election

In today's Independent,
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-shameful-bloody-silence-at-the-heart-of-the-election-1946255.html  

Johann Hari writes about the war in Afghanistan and states:

"In this election campaign, there is a big blood-splattered hole we are all supposed to ignore. We are at war. It is a war that 64 per cent of Brits believe is "unwinnable" and should end now. It is a war that has killed 281 British people and an untold, uncounted number of Afghan civilians. It is a war that costs £4.5bn a year. It is a war to keep Hamid Karzai in power – even though he announced last week: "I swear I am going to join the Taliban." Yet the three biggest political parties are shouting their slogans over the hole as if it does not exist." 

Yet I have been attacked as a parliamentary candidate for blogging about this by one of the main bloggers in Lambeth, onionbagblog. All I can say is that any candidate in this election who ignores the war and its impact on both the cuts agenda, loss of life both here and in Afghanistan, criminalisation of communities and a host of other issues which affect the community in Vauxhall, as well as everywhere else, is mendacious and cowardly. So I am amazed to see that the Labour Party candidates for the parliamentary constituencies in Lambeth cannot even be bothered to send a representative to the Stop the War Coalition hustings in the Brix, Brixton, next Monday night at 7.30pm where I will be on the platform, together with representatives of other parties.

And while we are on the subject of mendacity - Nick Clegg emerged as the winner of last night's debate in the polls, yet Chris Huhne was quite clear on the BBC later that the Lib Dems are not opposed to having a nuclear arsenal, only to renewing Trident. One other issue not addressed by Mr Clegg was the war in Afghanistan. But the Green Party manifesto launch yesterday was quite clear about it. We want this war to end and end now. The manifesto is downloadable below.

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/resources/Manifesto_web_file.pdf